My wife and I made a quick decision. We wanted to see Denzel. In that moment it was worth it.

We learned from the cashier that the corporate overlords, I mean, movie theater owners, had reconfigured the theaters so there is now a regular screen, an enhanced screen, and an imax screen. Denzel was playing on the enhanced screen.

“Anything for Denzel,” we said as we grabbed our tickets.

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Before the movie we bought some shoes. We brought our big shopping bag with shoeboxes into the movies, and nobody cared.

The only reason I mention this is because years ago, at the very same theater, we were pulled out of a very long line and asked to open our backpacks. Of course, we were caught red handed with a huge batch of homemade popcorn and told we could not bring it into the theater. We sat down in a corner and ate as much as we could before the show. It was very embarrassing at the time but turned out to be one of the formative memories of our relationship.

Once inside the theater we bypassed the overpriced popcorn and found our way to our seats. As the previews started I leaned over and whispered to my wife, “Next time we’ll use shoe boxes filled with popcorn and they’ll never know.”

She smiled and whispered back, “You make the best popcorn, dear.”

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See, it’s all about the bottom line — profit. Maybe there’s a guy in Eastern Europe with a violin, an animator with a computer in South Korea, or an editor in Russia with decent chops, and they’re all willing to work for cheap. Real cheap by living standards in the United States. So the Entertainment corporations, who are people according to the Supreme Court, get tax breaks from the government to keep their productions here in the US, and then farm out recording their musical scores, where they can get it done cheaper. And then they charge more for tickets, or worse yet pocket the savings.